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Monday, June 18, 2012

Apple turns you on with the angle of its laptops

A deep analysis of how Apple stores makes products irresistible reveals that store employees position the laptops at a very precise angle every morning, so that you just have to go over and touch them.
I find that angling my MacBook Air at 77 degrees forces me to work.
(Credit: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)
Sometimes, you're in a bar and there's a member of your target sex leaning just slightly toward you.

At least, that's what you think. Or rather feel. Something about their posture beckons you. Something suggests that you should be at one with them. Something tells you that they want you to complete them.

This is, apparently, a feeling Apple would like you to have inside its stores.

According to a moving piece from Forbes, each morning Apple employees whip out their iPhones, use an app called Simply Angle, and position the laptops to seduce.

The angle of desire is 70 degrees. Not 71. Not 69.

When you, the unsuspecting, vulnerable customer walk into an Apple store, you take one look at those new MacBook Pros and believe that they are opening themselves up to you. Yes, you. Just you.

Carmine Gallo, who wrote the Forbes piece and analyzed Apple's machinations at great length, says that the 70-degree angle makes you want to walk straight over to the laptop and and interact with it.

It makes you want to touch it, whisper to it in hushed tones and invite it back to your place.

It also encourages you to adjust the screen to your preferred number of degrees. Indeed, everything in the Apple store is designed for you to become touchy-feely with the products.

Employees, even if they're trying to be helpful, are told to explain but not handle the product, unless "given permission."

Gallo contrasts the Apple store with Best Buy. There, he says, there isn't quite the emphasis on your sensory perceptions. Perhaps being next to Olive Garden, rather a lovely little Wolfgang Puck eatery might encourage this attitude.

I am, of course, happy to believe that such attention to detail on Apple's part makes for a more pleasant and sensual shopping experience. Everything from the product design to the boxes appeals to one's aesthetic weaknesses.

There is one problem, though, that Apple's store designers have yet to solve: there are too many people in the place. Often, one look through the window at the hordes poring over their e-mails on MacBook Airs makes one want to resist the temptations and flee to somewhere more peaceful, like the local Texan separatist candle store.

It's hard to believe that once the hordes arrive, Apple store employees spend the rest of their days precisely re-angling all the laptops with the help of an iPhone app. Poor things don't have the time.

So though the notions of precision are utterly delightful, I wonder whether one or two other things contribute a little more strongly to Apple's sensual success.